Devil's Sea

CHAPTER EIGHT

Pytor and Felix Shashenka saw the cooling towers first as the helicopter approached the Chernobyl Reactor. Three were intact, one was covered in a sarcophagus of concrete. This was not their first trip here. They had come many times before to pay their respects to their brother’s tomb, the mass of concrete enclosing Reactor Four.

Today was different in one important aspect. They were here to conduct a mission. The twins were both officers in the Russian Army, both serving the elite Spetsnatz commandos, and both had volunteered for this mission. But it was Pytor who had the cancer, and thus it was Pytor who would go.

The helicopter landed next to Reactor Three, which was still in operation along with the other two. Pytor and Felix got off, each carrying a heavy backpack. Several soldiers were waiting for them, also Spetsnatz and heavily armed.

“This way,” the major in charge of the security detail indicated. They followed as he approached the massive edifice of concrete that covered Reactor Four. Two soldiers flanked a steel door, which the major opened with great effort. They were in a tunnel that had been bored into the concrete. The corridor went ten meter, then ended in a room protected with lead shielding. Numerous video monitors lined one wall. Pytor and Felix put the packs down and went to the monitors. This monitoring station was highly classified and had never been shown to many foreigners who came to the area to check levels of radioactivity.

“That’s the core,” the major said. “We had to send in a remote-controlled robot to put the camera in place.”

But both brothers were looking at a different monitor, the one featuring the remains of the control room. There were several skeletons littering the floor.

“They died instantly, the gas burning the flesh from their bones,” the major said. “Better fate than the ones who got a fatal dose and died the slow death.”

Pytor and Felix knew one of those skeletons was Andrej. And they knew everything the major was telling them as Pytor had been the commander of the first group to watch the reactor. There was little doubt in both their minds that is when the cancer started. Even though the control room was heavily shielded, the entire area was still a dangerous place.

“The orders I received-” the major began.

“Yes?’ Pytor asked. He was now looking at the core. The black triangle was still there, as it had been since that fateful day in 1986.

“Well, they said one of you was going in. Of course that must be wrong, is that not so?” The major was stumbling over his words.

‘No, the orders are quite correct,” Pytor said. He went over to one of the packs and opened it. He began pulling out pieces of a radiation suit.

“But it’s hot in there. Even with that on, you’ll get a fatal dose inside of a minute. No one’s been in there since the explosion.”

“I know that,” Pytor said as he began pulling on the suit, Felix helping. “Have you picked up anything new in the monitoring?”

“There were some scientists here from the Academy of Sciences,” the major said. “They picked up indications of time fluxes coming out of the triangle.”

“Time fluxes?” For the first time Pytor was surprised. “How do they know that?”

“The time indicator on the video cameras shifts about. Sometimes running backward, sometimes making jumps.” The major pointed at the monitor. “Whatever you have to do in there, why not use a robot?”

“There is not time to rig such a thing for what we want to do,” Pytor said. “Perhaps I should take my anti-radiation pill?” he added, referring to the placebo tablets that used to be issued to all Russians soldiers with the instructions that if taken, they would protect them from radiation. He pulled out the helmet and set it on his head.

Felix picked up the second backpack and put it on Pytor’s shoulders.

“Where is the new access point?” Felix asked.

The major pointed to a steel door on the side of the chamber. “You go through there. Down a corridor fifty meters, then it turns left to another door. That door leads to the air chamber. You hit the red button. When it turns green, you go in. Then you reverse the process to come out, but-” the major fell silent. They all knew that once someone went inside, they could never come out. Even the remote robots that had been used over the years had to be left inside. That was why there were none to use now. Also, the probe was too large for the small robots they had in inventory.

Felix gave his brother a hand as they went to the indicated door.

“Good luck,” the major offered.

Pytor could hear his breathing inside the enclosed helmet. Sweat was already running down his back, and he knew it would get hotter. He almost laughed aloud at that thought: hotter. Soon he was going to be very hot indeed. The pack was heavy, and he had lost much strength in the last several months from the chemotherapy treatments. The doctors had given him two months at best, and they promised to be a very painful two months. Because of that, Pytor was actually grateful to be able to do this mission, to die doing something positive rather than wasting away in a hospital bed.

They reached the airlock, and Felix hit the button. A steel door slid up. Before Pytor stepped in, Felix wrapped his arms around his brother as well as he could, considering the pod his brother carried in addition to his air tank. They exchanged no words; everything that had needed to be said had already been discussed. Felix turned the valve on the oxygen tank, sending oxygen to his brother, then he stepped back. Pytor went into the lock, and Felix hit the bottom, closing the steel door.

Felix turned and walked toward the control to watch his brother conduct the mission.

Pytor flinched as the inner door opened. He knew with that simple opening he was now the walking dead. He laughed once more. He had been the walking dead before he entered here. He stepped through. It was strange; there was dirt under his feet, the former outside of Reactor Four. He walked across the small open space toward the entrance to the control room. The world thought that the entire core and building had been buried under the concrete poured from the helicopters in the weeks after the explosion. But the black triangle had hallowed out a space, refusing to allow the concrete to pass, and when the concrete dried, the entire reactor was in the midst of an open space that made up the Chernobyl gate. Whatever field the triangle had propagated had subsequently disappeared, as the robots had been able to go in.

Pytor knew the rest of the world wanted the other three reactors shut down, the entire place abandoned, but there were two reasons Chernobyl was still in business: one was the desperate need for the power, and the second was the need to monitor this space and the black triangle inside.

Pytor felt his skin tingle, and he wasn’t sure whether that was real or a product of his imagination. Could it be the radiation, slowly seeping through the suit, or could it be the barrier of the gate? If he was indeed inside the gate already. This gate was different from the others for some reason. Pytor had met with Professor Kolkov, the Russian expert on the gates, and the scientist had expressed his own uncertainty about why it was different.

Pytor didn’t care that it was different. He didn’t care about the science, Andrej had been the scientist amount the three brothers, and this thing had killed him. It was a matter of honor, an oath the three had sworn when Andrej had been the first to leave home, they would always be there for each other, and if anything happened to one, the others would revenge. Pytor had had to wait many years, but now he was taking the first step in that revenge. It would be up to Felix to complete it.

Pytor opened the door leading to the control center and stepped in. The skeletons littering the floor were the first things he noticed. He knelt in the center of the room and pulled a bunch of daisies from the top of the pack and placed them there. They had been given to him by Andrej’s widow.

Then he went to the heavy door that led to the reactor core. Slowly he unbolted it and swung it open. He was drenched in sweat, and the inside of the mask was beginning to fog up. Even the oxygen coming from the tank tasted strange.

He stepped into the core and saw the black triangle. Each side was fifteen feet long, and the entire thing was about ten feet high. Its composition was hard to make out, not appearing solid, but the sides were perfectly straight. It was almost as if the triangle was made of a thick, black liquid. Pytor approached and stopped just a few feet short of the side. He knew Felix was watching on the video monitor, so he turned and waved. He reached out with his hand. As the glove touched the black, it felt as if it were going into molasses. He pulled his hand back out and looked at it. No apparent change. With no hesitation, he stepped into the black and was swallowed up.

“The second probe is transmitting,” Ahana announced.

“Linkage?” Nagoya asked as he looked over her shoulder.

“The transmission is propagating,” Ahana said as a red line on the screen began extending slowly toward the dot that represented the probe that had been taken into the Devil’s Sea gate. “Contact,” she said as the line met the dot.

The probes were preprogrammed to run through a variety of tests in contact with each other, and Nagoya stepped back to allow his people to accumulate the data.

Major Pytor Shashenka was kneeling over the probe. He smiled as he saw the readout scroll through various programs, indicating it was working. Then he looked around once more. He was in the center of the triangle, the floor beneath him perfectly smooth, the air full of that thick yellowish gray fog, just as Kilkov had told him areas inside the gates on Earth appeared. He realized this was an anteroom to the real portal. The fog was so thick he couldn’t see the edge of the black triangle across from him.

He could feel the effects of the radiation now. His stomach was churning, his head pounding in pain. He was soaked in sweat. He vomited into his mask, fouling it. Bowing to the inevitable, he removed the mask. He knew he was shortening what little time he had left, but he saw no reason not to.

As the probe continued to work, he got up and walked around. His foot hit something, and he paused. Reaching down, he picked up the object. A bronze helmet with a chinstrap, the metal highly polished, he leather on the chinstrap oiled. A spasm passed through his body, and he collapsed to the floor next to the probe, the leather in his lap.

The air was foul almost oily. Pytor ran a hand across his forehead, wiping the sweat away. He placed the helmet on top of the probe. There were Lain numbers imprinted in the bronzed in the front. He squinted. XXV.

Most strange, he thought before he passed out.

In front of him, a circle of black appeared, eclipsing down to the floor until it was six feet high and three feet wide.

“We’ve got the Chernobyl probe!” Ahana announced. “Through the Devil’s Sea gate,” she added. “So there is a definite connection between the two on the other side.”

“Excellent,” Nagoya said. “Phase two is successful. Now it is time for phase three.”

“Which is?” Ahana wanted to know.

“Going into the gate itself and opening a portal.”

‘How do you propose to do that?” Ahana asked.

Instead of answering, Nagoya asked a question in turn. “What do you think of the physics of the gates now that you have this data?”

“I think the muon emissions are important,” Ahana said, “to understanding the gates.” She had the data gathered from the probes spread out on a large table and was checking it as she spoke.

Nagoya nodded. “Muons are part of the second family of fundamental particles. Most of what we are used to in our world is in the first family, consisting of electrons, up-quarks, and down-quarks. The second family consists of muons, charm quarks, and strange quarks. And all these things are not single points, according to string theory, but rather a tiny one-dimensional loop hat that is vibrating. That gives it several characteristics that allow us to merge relativity and quantum mechanics.”

Ahana considered that. “I understand what you are saying, but we cannot even see particles at that level. We only know they exist because of their effect, as evidence by the tank we are on top of.”

Nagoya nodded. “I know, but you don’t need to see something to manipulate it. Reverse what you just said. We know these basic particles exist because we can study their effect. Then why can’t we use an effect to manipulate the particles?”

He continued, “I think this is what the Shadow is doing and why the muons we detect are not decaying as quickly as we believe they should. Because the Shadow is using the muons and the quarks.” He held up a finger. “Power. That is the key. We know the Shadow likes to draw power from this side, whether it be in the form of radioactivity as it did at Chernobyl, or from the planet itself along the tectonic plates, one of the greatest, if slowest, powers on the planet. I think it uses the fault lines not just before attacking us but to draw power. That is what this is all about. And how many base forms of power are there?” he asked Ahana.

“There are four base forces in nature: gravity, electromagnetic, strong, and weak.”

“Correct.”

Ahana gave a slight smile. She viewed Nagoya as a father, and when he got in this mode, she felt a strong affection for him. It was how they had worked out many problems in the past, going to the elementary level and examining things from scratch.

“And the force particles for each?” Nagoya asked.

‘For electromagnetic it is the photon. Gravity…well, it’s postulated that there is a particle called the graviton but again, only because of effect, not that we’ve ever seen one. For strong, the particle is the gluon. And for weak, you have weak gauge bosons.”

“I think the Shadow can manipulate the strong and weak forces,” Nagoya said. “We can do so, but only crudely. A nuclear weapon explodes when we split atoms, and the strong forces are released. When uranium decays in a reactor, we are using weak forces. But what if you could manipulate strong and weak forces like we use electricity?”

“The power would be tremendous.” Ahana was beginning to get excited, too. Also, consider gravity. Very powerful, but we cannot manipulate it at all.”

“Correct,” Nagoya said. He held his hand up and let it drop to his side. “We fight it constantly. Think of the energy required to put a rocket into space. Something that weighs relatively little requires a tremendous expense of energy. Turn it around. Imagine the energy that is going the other way, all the time. But I do not think the Shadow can manipulate gravity. If so, there would be an inexhaustible supply anywhere in the universe. No.” he shook his head. “It is the strong and weak forces at the smallest level that the Shadow controls.

“Imagine then,” Nagoya’ voice was excited, “if one could manipulate those forces at the smallest levels, then apply the right focus to bring it to the visible universe! I think that is what the gates are. Now, the issue is, how do we use that?’

Ahana’s mind was racing. “The Shadow comes to our side and extends its environment to a certain extent into our world to tap power here. Would it not make sense that we could do the same to it? Go into their world and tap their power?”

“With what?” Nagoya asked.

Ahana pointed down at the superkamiokande that was below. “We’ve only used this to receive, never to transmit. The first probe proved that we can make contact with the other side through the portals. The Russian probe proved that the gates are connected on the other side. What if we develop a portable superkamiokande and take it to a gate and transmit using the data we’ve just picked up?”

Nagoya considered that. “That might work, but I doubt if we could focus enough power to open the gate.”

“We do what the Shadow does,” Ahana said.

“What do you mean?”

“We take power from the Shadow’s side like it’s taking power from our side and bring it to bear at the portal.”

“How?”

“We run an extension cord and plug in,” Ahana said.

Pytor’s eyes hurt to open. It was as if his eyelids were crusted shut. With great effort, he opened them and blinked, trying to clear his vision. His entire body throbbed with pain.

The first thing he saw was a smooth, white face with no mouth or nose, just two red eyes staring at him. He looked down. The body of the creature in front of him was also encased in white, something that looked like plastic, but he could tell it wasn’t. A clock covered its shoulders. He was startled to note the thing as floating a few inches off the ground.

His arms were locked to his sides, and straps ran over his chest and legs, holding him in place on a vertical table. He struggled to move, but there was no give to the straps. The air was strange, even thicker than where he had just been. Beyond the creature was a cavern hewn out of black stone.

Looking to his right. Pytor saw a row of tables similar to the one he was strapped to. He cried out as he saw the condition of the poor souls on them. Many had been flayed, their skin gone, replaced by some sort of clear wrapping that glistened obscenely, revealing the muscles and internal organs beneath. Various leads went into the bodies, particularly the heads. Most of those he could see had had the top of the skulls neatly sliced off, and needles went into the exposed brains. The tops of the needles were small, glowing bulbs of various colors, the entire spectrum of the rainbow.

Piles of clothes lay near some of the bodies, and he could tell that some were the uniforms of American sailors. It was impossible, given the condition of the bodies, to tell nationalities. And they were alive. That was the worst part, as he watched the slow rise and fall of the chests of those nearest him.

He shifted his gaze back to the creature in front of him as it finally moved. Its left arm ending in a shining blade. The tip came forward to Pytor’s sternum. He looked own and could see ugly red splotches on his skin, blisters breaking though as the radiation ran its course.

Another creature appeared, floating smoothly, a group of needles in one claw, a small red tube with a glowing tip in the other. The tube was raised, and despite his high level of pain, Pytor screamed as a beam cut into the top of his head, neatly cutting through flesh and bone, stopping a millimeter from his brain. With dazed eyes, he saw the top of this skull tossed to the ground in front of him. He distantly felt pokes as the second creature inserted needles into his brain.

He cursed at the creature in Russian as the first one slid the blade into his chest, smoothly parting the skin. The radiation was taking too long, he realized. And the cancer… The creature stopped the blade as if reading his mind. It turned and faced the other. They stayed like that for several moments as if exchanging information, then the second disappeared behind him. It reappeared a moment later with a pair of inverted forceps.

Pytor screamed as the tips went in between his ribs and split them open, shattering bone, exposing one of his diseased lungs. They seemed to find the cancer most interesting as both hovered there, probing and poking. Blood was flowing out of his chest, he could feel it seeping down over his legs, but one of the tubes that they had put in him was replacing it as quickly as it left.

Then they both disappeared. One — which one he had no idea — reappeared, with a tube. It jabbed it into his chest, right into his heart. Pytor finally passed out.

How long he was unconscious he didn’t know, but when he awoke, one of the creatures was still in front of him. Pytor forced himself to look down. The creature with the blade was cutting, slicing his lung out of this chest. The other lung was already gone. Through his pain, Pytor was amazed. How was he alive? Or was this hell, he suddenly thought, and these were demons tormenting him?

And why was he able to tolerate the pain? It was bad but not what he would have imagined for the damage that had been done to his body. The tube that went into his chest pulsed, and he had to assume that it was supplying his blood with oxygen, although how, he had no idea.

The second creature floated into view, something lumpy and grayish red in its claws. A lung. Pytor had to look away as he felt them working on his chest. He passed out once more.

When he woke once more, the creature was simply there in front of him, not moving, unblinking red eyes staring at him. Pytor looked down. The same transparent wrap was over his chest, covering the muscle and bones. The tube was still stuck in his chest, and he realized he wasn’t breathing: although not painful, this was the most disconcerting experience so far.

Seeing he was awake, the creature reached forward and ripped the tube from his chest with one abrupt jerk. Pytor gasped, air streaming into his mouth, down his throat and to the new lungs. He screamed, the sound echoing through the cavern.

Dane stood on the beach, staring out at Chelsea playing in the Pacific Ocean. The golden retriever would dash out with the surf, then retreat as each wave approached, then repeat it each time as if it were a new experience and she was surprised at the water coming in.

“You’re not very bright,” Dane said.

Chelsea turned and gave him a disapproving look, only to get soaked as the next wave hit her in the side. Dane was also startled as a voice suddenly caught his attention to his left.

“My brother disappeared out there in 1945.” Foreman nodded toward the ocean off the coast of Japan. They were waiting for a helicopter to meet them and fly them north to meet with Nagoya. The runway was adjacent to the beach, and Dane had taken the opportunity to walk Chelsea. He had been surprised when Foreman accompanied him.

“You believe he went into the Devil’s Sea gate?” Dane asked.

“The entire flight, minus my plane, simply disappeared,” Foreman said. “I was spared because I had engine trouble and had to ditch. The weather was fine, visibility to the horizon. They were all experienced pilots on their way back to the carrier. We had the Japanese licked to the point where there was practically no opposition in the air. What else could have caused all those planes to vanish?”

Dane saw no reason to argue with Foreman’s reasoning. The old man had his own crosses to bear with regard to the gates. “You recruited Sin Fen, didn’t you?” Dane asked instead.

Foreman nodded. “She was living on the streets of Phnom Penh. Barely surviving. I sensed something about her, that she had some connection with the gates. Just as I sensed it about you.”

“Are you sure you recruited her,” Dane said, “and it wasn’t the other way around?”

“What do you mean?”

“What she did to stop the Bermuda Triangle gate,” Dane said, “was not normal, to say the least. She was special. It seems strange that you would be so lucky to simply find her on the streets of Phnom Penh. It seems more logical that she sought you out.”

“What difference does it make?” Foreman asked.

“The difference,” Dane said, “is that if she sought you out, then you’re not running things like you want to believe.” He let the silence after that statement last for several seconds before he spoke again. “You had no idea she was part of the pyramid system or the role she was to play. The problem, as I see it, is that Sin Fen is gone now, and we’re on our own.”

“And?” Foreman finally asked.

“And,” Dane said, “I suggest you start being honest with me. Stop making plans behind my back and informing me of them after the fact. We might have been able to get that information about the gate without losing the Reveille or the Deepflight and all those people.”

“I do what I have to do,” Foreman said.

“One of these days you’re going to be the point man,” Dane said.

“And if I am, I’ll do my duty,” Foreman said.

Dane realized that Foreman meant what he said. He was willing to give up his life if it meant defeating the Shadow.

“There’s another problem,” Dane said.

“Which is?”

“We don’t have another Sin Fen handy,” Dane said.

“And?”

“And that means we don’t’ have and important piece that’s needed to shut a gate,” Dane said. “She came from a long line of priestesses. Do you have any information on that?”

“No.”

“Don’t lie to me,” Dane said.

“There’ve been many cults that promoted priestesses,” Foreman said. “And, yes, I’ve looked into them. I’ll have a copy of the file forwarded for you. But I don’t have a line on a current group.

“Sin Fen was current,” Dane noted.

“I’m not an idiot,” Foreman said. “I checked Sin Fen out as much as I could. She was an orphan on the streets of Phnom Penh. I think she was descended from the priestesses of Angkor, but the line has been scattered, and it was the power of the gate and my investigating it that drew her to me, not a deliberate plan on her part.”

“How did she know her role in the pyramid?” Dane asked.

“That I don’t know. I would assume some sort of genetic memory. Or the voices of the gods you two were babbling about.”

Dane wasn’t sure how much he agreed with Foreman. It could have been genetic memory, or it could have been the voices of the gods that he himself heard: where that came from or what exactly it was, he didn’t know, but he was learning to trust that inner voice more and more.

“How would—” Foreman began, but Dane held up a hand, hushing him.

Chelsea was absolutely still in knee-deep water, her head cocked, ears erect, looking out to sea. Dane almost mimicked her pose, intense, still, except his eyes were closed as he tried to see with his special sense.

There was a strong presence in the water not far away. Dane didn’t feel any danger, but the presence was something he had never experienced before, very foreign and alien. He picked up thoughts but could make no sense of them. Correction. There were several presences, highly intelligent, very close by, studying Foreman, Chelsea, and him on the beach from the security of the water.

“What is it?” Foreman finally asked.

Dane held his hand up once more. Foreman’s voice an irritating insect’s buzz in his ear. He took a step into the water toward Chelsea. The fact that the dog showed no sign of fear he took as encouraging. He knelt in the surf next to Chelsea, putting a hand on her neck. For some strange reason, he knew that the dog was actually picking up the strange presence better than he was.

Dane scanned the surface of the water. He saw a spray of water in the air, then a dorsal fin cutting the blue surface, curving around, coming toward him and Chelsea. He stood.

“Dane!” Foreman’s voice was alarmed.

But Dane could see the fin change course once more and head to his right. He turned, then was startled as Chelsea leapt through the surf in the same direction. Dane splashed after her.

Fifty meters down the beach, something was caught on the beach in the area between water and land, struggling in the outgoing tide. It was about two feet long and bluish gray and also sported a small dorsal fin. Dane relaxed when he realized he was looking at a baby dolphin. Chelsea ran right up to it and pushed it with her nose, helping it out toward the ocean.

In a few seconds, the small dolphin was in deep enough water to swim. It shot away from Chelsea, who gave a triumphant bark, then galloped back to Dane.

“Good girl,” Dane said, as he turned back toward Foreman, but then he picked up something from Chelsea. Together, they looked out to sea. A row of dolphins, at least a dozen, were coming toward them, fins cutting the surface. Then they all stopped about twenty meters away and rose up on their tails, half out of the water, dark eyes staring at Dane and Chelsea.

One of them, a magnificent specimen almost fifteen feet long, moved slightly forward. Chelsea barked. Dane knew that the dolphin was communicating in some way with his dog, but he couldn’t pick up anything directly. Then he saw it, relayed from Chelsea: a darkness in the ocean, danger.

Just as quickly as they had come, the dolphins turned and disappeared beneath the waves. Dane was startled as the sound of helicopter blades slicing through air cut into his conscious mind. A Japanese military chopper came in low over the water, circled, and set down. The side door slid open, and a crew member waved for them to get on board.

“What the hell was that all about?” Foreman demanded as Dane helped Chelsea on board.

“We’re not in this alone,” Dane said.

Ariana Michelet got out of the Lincoln Town Car on Central Park West and stared up at the large sphere enclosed in a glass cube: the Frederick Phineas & Sandra Priest Rose Center for the Earth and Space. The glass cube was ninety-five feet on each side, and the sphere inside housed the Hayden Planetarium. Lit by colored searchlights, the sphere, inside the glass, was a magnificent sight.

She stood still for a few moments looking at it. The sphere, the interior upper half of which was the most sophisticated virtual reality machine in the world, had always seemed large to her. It was eighty-seven feet in diameter and weighed over two thousand tons. Impressive it was, but she knew that it was dwarfed by the sphere that had come out of the gate.

Shrugging off the disturbing image, she turned and headed for the front steps of the American Museum of Natural History. Since her father was one of the largest contributors to the building of the new planetarium, her phone call to the museum’s curator asking for assistance had been greeted with quick acquiescence.

The person waiting at the top of the stairs, Jaka Van Liten, had agreed to meet Ariana here because of the nature of the subject matter of the meeting: crystal skulls. As Ariana got closer, she could see that Van Liten was a small, wizened old woman, clutching a leather briefcase in her gnarled hands. Ariana had found the woman’s name on the Internet, constantly mentioned as the number one expert in the world on crystal skulls and purported to own quite a few in her personal collection. Ariana’s invitation to join her at the museum to see its crystal skull had been greeted with enthusiasm by Van Liten, who lived in Manhattan and was only a short cab ride from the museum.

“Good evening, Ms. Van Liten,” Ariana greeted her as she arrived at the top of the stairs. “I’m Ariana Michelet. Thank you for coming on such short notice.”

“Michelet,” Van Liten said. “I knew your father many years ago.”

Ariana had not known that. “Where did you meet him?”

“My family is like yours. The same circles. I’ve been a recluse for the past ten years, but before that, I was quite… how shall we say… a party girl.”

Ariana smiled at the thought of this little old lady with his father. The smiled disappeared though when Van Liten asked a question.

“Are the skulls connected to these gates that are causing so much trouble?”

“We’re checking into that,” Ariana hedged. She noted that a guard was waiting for them, holding a door to the now-closed museum open for them. “Shall we go inside?”

She escorted the old woman through the door. The click of their heels echoed in the massive Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Hall. A middle-aged man in a white coat and sporting a most serious manner was waiting for them in the center of the hall.

“Good evening,” Ariana said as they approached.

“I’m Dr. Fleidman,” he said, emphasizing his title.

Ariana introduced herself and Van Liten, picking up the doctor’s disdain for both her and the old woman. Ariana held back telling him of her own two PhD’s having run into this type of person before.

“This way,” Fleidman said and began walking away, causing them to hurry to keep up. As they passed through the hall, Ariana Michelet remembered her first visit to the museum as a child and her predominant memories were of the model of the huge squid that hung in one hallway and the squid fighting a large blue whale in another. She had found that place wondrous and returned many times over the years. The museum was located right across from Central Park, where Central Park West and West Seventy-ninth Street intersected, taking up an entire city block.

They exited the Roosevelt entrance hall and turned left, going into the Hall of Biodiversity, where the arms of the squid cast strange shadows on the walls. As they passed under the squid, Fleidman caught Ariana looking up at it.

“It’s the oldest model on display in the museum,” he said. “Purchased in 1895. Made of papier-mâché and forty-two feet long. We actually have a real giant squid body, twenty-five feet long, that was brought here in 1998.”

Ariana nodded. They’d recovered videos from the Glomar of the attack by the strange, squid like creatures — krakens, Dane had called them — with tentacles that ended in mouths. She knew there would be no model of that bizarre creature, because it wasn’t part of this world’s natural history.

They reached the Hall of Gems and Minerals, Fleidman’s domain. He stopped at a box just outside the entrance and punched in a code. “The hall is very secure. Laser detectors, pressure sensors, and constant live video feed.” He waved up at an unseen camera. “There is, of course, ample need for such security. We have over one hundred fourteen thousand specimens. Ninety thousand minerals, twenty thousand rocks and four thousand gems. Of note, we have the Star of India, which is the world’s largest blue star sapphire.” He pointed to his right as they passed a glass case, and Ariana could see the sapphire, highlighted by a single light above it.

“And how many crystal skulls?” Ariana asked.

Fleidman pulled a ring of keys out of one of his deep pockets and unlocked a metal door that had No Admittance to Public prominently stenciled on it. He ushered her and Van Liten through, into a long, dimly lit room, the center of which was filled with rows of tables holding crates and boxes.

“One,” Fleidman said as he hit the overhead lights. The skull rested in the center of one of the tables. It was human-sized and pure, the eye sockets empty.

Ariana walked over and peered at it. It was quite beautiful, the surface translucent. She reached, then paused. “May I touch it?”

Fleidman nodded. Ariana ran her fingers lightly over it. The surface was perfectly smooth and cool. She felt a tingle of power, so subtle she wasn’t sure if it was real or not. Fleidman walked around to the other side of the table.

“Quartz is mostly composed of silicon dioxide and is found in almost every rock. It can also form huge crystals that can weigh up to several tons. However, it is extremely rare to find pure quartz like this, which is colorless. Even the slightest influence of other material can greatly tinge quartz. Onyx and agate are two types of quartz that are streaked with bands of color from mother elements. Amethyst is violet quartz.

“Quartz is also very difficult to work with,” Fleidman continued. “If you work against the grain of the stone, the crystal will shatter. There are three common denominations to crystal skulls. Those considered ancient, those called old, and those manufactured now.”

“Why would someone manufacture one now?” Ariana asked.

Fleidman glanced at Van Liten, then answered. “There are those who believe such forms hold tremendous power. Nothing proven, of course. It’s like those who believe pyramids focus power, which has also never been proven.”

“What about the ancient ones?” Ariana asked.

“The numbers vary, as most are held in private collections”—again the hard look at Van Liten—“but some say there are as many as forty-nine.”

“No,” Van Liten spoke for the first time. “Many of those are copies. There are only nine ancient skulls of the pure form that have been found that I know of.”

“Pure form?” Ariana asked.

“Many that people claim to be ancient are made of the wrong material. They come in amethyst, sapphire, smoky quartz, topaz, moonstone, etcetera. The pure form are those that are composed of perfect, unflawed, quartz crystal. As Dr. Fleidman noted, quartz is very easily corrupted. Also, they are human-sized. There are others made of pure quartz, but they are smaller.

“This one”—Fleidman seemed bothered that Ariana was asking questions of Van Liten in his museum—“was found in an ancient Mayan Pyramid in Central America.”

Ariana stared at it, sensing something, the empty eye sockets looking back at her. “Why isn’t it on display?” she asked.

“Well…” Fleidman seemed at a loss, and Van Liten answered.

“Because they can’t explain it. Correct, young man?”

“It’s simply an artifact,” Fleidman said.

“It is not simply an artifact,” Van Liten said. “Can’t you sense the power in it?”

“There are some strange aspects to this,” Fleidman allowed. “We’ve analyzed it, and the carving is perfect, which is difficult to explain, given the dating of the pyramid it was found in. You see, to carve quartz, which has a hardness of seven on a scale of ten, with diamond being a ten, you need something harder than seven. No ancient society we know of had such tools. Also, the carving, what little we can tell of it, seems to go against the natural axis, although that is very difficult to determine. As I mentioned, if you carve against the grain, the quartz should shatter. Obviously, in this case, it didn’t.”

“That’s because there is no carving.” Van Liten said.

“They don’t occur naturally, growing on trees,” Fleidman snapped. “Where do you think they come from?”

“That I am not sure of,” Van Liten said. “At least I am willing to admit my ignorance.”

“Quartz has interesting properties,” Fleidman said, trying to get back to an area where he was an expert. As he went on, Ariana had to almost bite her tongue to keep from speaking.

“Quartz is the second most common of all minerals,” Fleidman said. “It is composed of silicon dioxide. It is the primary constituent of sand. It crystallizes in the rhombohedra system. It exhibits interesting properties, one of which is the piezoelectric effect, which means it produces electric voltage when subjected to pressure along certain lines of axis. Therefore it has important applications in the electronics industry for controlling the frequency of radio waves.” He reached out and turned the skull on its stand under the light. “In addition, it has the optical property of rotating the plane of polarized light.”

“It also goes through structural transformation when heated,” Ariana said. “Low quartz, when heated to one thousand sixty-three point four degrees Fahrenheit becomes high quartz, which has a different crystal structure and physical properties. When cooled, high quartz reverts back to low quartz.” She pointed at the skull. “It would be interesting to see what properties these skulls have as high quartz.”

Fleidman seemed disconcerted by her detailed knowledge of geology. Ariana had spent most of her adult life working for her father, searching the world for valuable minerals. She had been drawn into the entire gate phenomenon because of a search for a diamond field in northwest Cambodia, where her plane had been downed inside the Angkor gate.

“How many skulls do you have?” Ariana asked Van Liten, deciding now was not the time to tell what Dane had seen happen to Sin Fen.

Van Liten reached into her leather briefcase and drew out five photographs, which she spread across the table in front of the skull. “Five pure ancients.”

“From where?” Ariana pressed as she checked the pictures. All five were almost exactly the same, with some slight differences in size. All were very realistic, exact approximations of the human skull.

“One from Central America. One from Russia. One from Mongolia. One from Canada. And one from under the Atlantic.”

“All found near pyramids?”

“The origin of some I have no idea about other than general vicinity,” Van Liten said. “I bought two on the black market, where naturally, the sellers were loath to say where they obtained them. I own Shui Ting Er, which was found in Mongolia inside a large burial mound. I also own what is called the Jesuit Skull, which purportedly has an association with the Jesuits and Saint Francis of Assisi; and a skull found in a burial mound in Russia that contained artifacts from the Scythalians.

“You have to understand, though, that just as I have purchased these skulls, I believe they have traveled far from their original sites. A crystal skull is rumored to give great power to whoever possesses it, so it is impossible to determine where each one originated or how many people have possessed each one over the course of the ages.”

Ariana turned back to Fleidman. “Anything else you’ve discovered about the skulls?”

“I’ve told you all that we’ve learned.”

Ariana was frustrated. She knew that Dane had sent her here instead of accompanying him to Japan to get her out of the way. Why does it matter about the skulls now? She wondered. They are an end product, worthless. She checked that thought. As they were now, they were worthless, but that didn’t rule out other possibilities.

“Have you ever checked the skull for muon emissions?” she asked Fleidman.

“Muon emissions? No.”

Ariana doubted he even knew what muons were. She turned to Van Liten. “What else do you know about the skulls?”

“There are several theories,” Van Liten said. She glanced at Fleidman. “Most are considered rubbish by the scientific community, but there are events occurring now around the world that scientists are having a very difficult time explaining, are there not?”

Ariana nodded. “Go ahead.”

“There are those who believe the skulls are a form of — for lack of a better word — a computer, or a critical part of a larger computer, perhaps a hard drive, so to speak. These people believe that the skulls record everything that occurs around them and perhaps, even draw in the memories of those who touch them, thus making them a recorder of history.”

Fleidman snorted, but Van Liten ignored him as she continued.

“Other people claim the skulls were brought to our planet by extraterrestrials. Others suggest that they were made by people who live inside the Earth. They propose that there are twelve pure skulls, each representing one of the twelve tribes of people who dwell there.”

Ariana fought to keep her reaction to herself, while Fleidman had no such compunction.

“A hollow Earth theory?”

“I’m just relating various theories,” Van Liten said, “not saying whether they are valid or not.”

Ariana considered that. It wasn’t as far-fetched as she would have thought a month ago. It would definitely seem to ancient people that the gates were doorways into the Earth itself.

Van Liten continued, “In many of the theories, though, the numbers twelve and thirteen do crop up. There seems to be some acceptance, even among radically different theories, that there are twelve pure ancients, along with a thirteenth master skull, and that if they are brought together, something momentous will happen.”

“Are there any—” Ariana began, but then she paused.

“Yes?” Van Liten pressed her.

“Are there any rumors that these skulls are someone’s real skull transformed in some matter?”

This time Fleidman’s snort of disgust was loud. Ariana spun toward him. “Doctor, we have a very reliable eyewitness who saw this transformation.”

“You’re joking, right?”

“You’ve seen what happened in Iceland, right?” Ariana didn’t wait for an answer. “These skulls are related to the gates, so I am most definitely not joking.”

“Most interesting.” Van Liten seemed to get taller as she straightened. “Yes, there have been similar stories. When did this occur?”

“During the last outbreak of the Bermuda Triangle gate,” said Ariana. She quickly related what Dane had seen happen to Sin Fen on top of the sunken pyramid. When she was done, Van Liten turned to the skull on the table. She reached out with her wrinkled hands and ran her fingers lightly over the cheeks. “So this was indeed a person. A priestess. Who died to stop the Shadow.”

“It appears so,” Ariana confirmed.

“Amazing,” was Van Liten’s summary.

“You said there was a spear with the figure of a seven headed snake on the end,” Fleidman said. “How come none of those have turned up?”

“I don’t know,” Ariana said.

“And the master skull — if there is one—” Van Liten said, “What about that?”

“Maybe,” Ariana said, “that’s still in someone’s head and hasn’t been transformed yet. I do think, though, that we need to start gathering up the pure ancient skulls. Just in case.”

“You can have mine,” Van Liten immediately offered.